Removing unfrozen or completely frozen food products from the discharge end of a belt conveyor is generally quite easy. Unfrozen products have little adhesion to the belt and are easily removed by gravity or a tight fitting scraper. Fully frozen products often adhere to the belt, but are rigid and are easily removed by a rigid scraper.
There are times when it is desirable to remove products from the discharge end of a belt conveyor when they are only partially frozen. This may be done to stiffen a product prior to coating it with breading or to stiffen a product prior to placing it on a wire mesh spiral freezer belt while still being quite soft and even wet in places. The products will not generally fall off the belt due to gravity nor will scrapers work well. The normal situation with scrapers is that soft, wet portions of the product will get under the scraper and prevent the product from coming off or even drag the rest of the product under the scraper with it. This happens even with the so called "finger scraper" design.